Fred's Box
by Georgana
Summary: There's always one thing you value most. Sometimes it's a secret, sometimes it's not. Sometimes, you have to search for it.


As far as George knew, Fred had never been terribly nostalgic. Neither of them had ever felt as if they were hiding things from each other, and even if they did, they didn't bother to ask. Now the idea of Fred's secrets perplexed George. What had he missed? Everyone knew that Fred and George were scarcely serious, and now George regretted that. Sure, he wouldn't trade all the pranks and fun for anything, but he felt as if there were a part of his twin that he'd never gotten to know. He now wondered what was most important to Fred.

There was one serious thing that the twins had shared, though: they both had a hiding place where they'd kept a few things. They knew where each other hid their box, but no one else even knew of their existence.

It had been a year since Fred died and George still didn't feel as if he would ever get over his death. Not an hour passed when George didn't think about Fred. He knew that he'd never be fully healed, so he'd chosen today, the anniversary of his death, to open the box.

George stood up and walked over to Fred's unmade and untouched bed. He sat down onto the floor beside it and pulled out the box. Fred hadn't gone through much trouble in hiding it.

A Skiving Snackbox sat in his lap. This was their very first Skiving Snackbox, one that Hermione Granger, the prefect, had threatened to take away if they'd continued to test it on first years. They'd saved the box, and Fred had chosen it as his memories box. When they'd moved out of the Burrow, he'd taken a few of his favorite things from his childhood and stuffed them into this box. George ran his hands over the lid and prepared himself to open it. With shaking hands he took off the lid and looked down at the contents.

On top lay a flyer, one of their first from when they'd opened their joke shop as a mail order service. George looked down at the flier and remembered all the late nights that they had spent developing their products, testing them on themselves, and all of the mad planning.

Next in the box was a prefect badge. It wasn't his, with all of the trouble that they had caused; they couldn't have been prefects no matter how hard they'd tried. Not that they'd have wanted to anyways, it was such a dull task. You couldn't have any real fun with that burden of a badge on your chest. This badge was Ron's. They hadn't stolen it from him. When Ron left the Burrow with Harry and Hermione towards the last part of the war, he'd left it there. The entire family, especially Molly, was frantic. Ron, the youngest brother, went months without checking in. In the chaos of war, families lost loved ones every day unknowingly. Fred had found it one day as they were packing up parts of the Burrow to take with them as they travelled to safe houses around the country. He'd picked it up to take with him as a piece of Ron. Just in case the Burrow got destroyed. Just in case Ron didn't come out alive. Under the prefect badge was a quill. It wasn't just any quill; it was Percy's quill. When Percy got his job at the Ministry, he began driving everyone in the house crazy, so Fred and George felt the need to return the favor. One by one, Percy's things started disappearing. They weren't stealing them, but moving them around the house, and out of Percy's carefully organized work area.

After the quill was a doll covered in crimson stains. It was Ginny's favorite doll. One day when she was little, Fred and George had taken the doll and charmed it to change strange colors. They'd told Ginny that the doll was probably cursed, and Mum had gone ballistic. When they'd tried to turn it back, they couldn't quite turn it back correctly. Feeling guilty, they told Mum that they'd lost the doll so that Ginny wouldn't have a doll that looked as if it were covered in blood.

Now George had reached the bottom of the box. Some of Dad's plug collection was scattered about, along with some jacks that they'd played with when they were kids. Some a few pages on degnomeing gardens, written by Gilderoy Lockheart were crumbled up, he'd ripped them out of the book after their third year when they'd discovered that he was a fraud. Mum didn't want to believe it and kept referring to his books, so they'd helped a few of the pages to go "missing" until so many of them were gone that there wasn't anything left for Mum to refer to.

There were a few chocolate frog cards that they'd taken from Charlie, and an invitation to Bill's wedding that had been jokingly sent to them.

Finally, on the bottom of the box was a photo. It was a family photo, the one from their trip to Egypt. That's when George knew what his twin had valued most, all fun and games aside, family was the most important.


End file.
